September 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of a bomb explosion outside Sunday services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that wounded over 20 and killed four young black girls during the height of America’s Civil Rights Movement. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered their eulogy. Perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and meant to slow the growing civil rights movement in the South, the racist killings instead fueled protests that helped speed passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin” in employment practices and public accommodations.

This Photo Friday will feature Marion Palfi’s photographs of segregation and victims of racism in the South, a selection of portraits of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Benedict Fernandez, and Danny Lyon’s poignant images of grief-stricken funeral mourners in Birmingham as well as non-violent protests and violent arrests.

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